Jane Austen's Uncensored Rebellion: the Juvenilia
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JANE AUSTEN’S UNCENSORED REBELLION: THE JUVENILIA A Thesis Presented to the faculty of the Department of English California State University, Sacramento Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in English (Literature) by Michelle Yvette Linney FALL 2018 © 2018 Michelle Yvette Linney ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii JANE AUSTEN’S UNCENSORED REBELLION: THE JUVENILIA A Thesis by Michelle Yvette Linney Approved by: __________________________________, Committee Chair Dr. Jonas Seth Cope __________________________________, Second Reader Dr. Susan Wanlass ____________________________ Date iii Student: Michelle Yvette Linney I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for the thesis. __________________________, Graduate Coordinator ___________________ Department Chair Date Department of English iv Abstract of JANE AUSTEN’S UNCENSORED REBELLION: THE JUVENILIA by Michelle Yvette Linney Jane Austen’s juvenilia was preserved in three vellum notebooks, which contain final drafts of over twenty short stories, plays, letters, and scraps written between 1787 and 1793. As such, they offer a rare glimpse at the development of the aspiring young writer, documenting the evolution of Austen’s early writing style. The stories are burlesques of traditional themes from eighteenth-century literature, offering Austen’s readers her humorous perspective on the limiting conventions reinforced in popular novels and conduct books. While Austen loved reading novels, she was critical of depictions of sentimentalism and mocked the excessive emotion depicted in her favorite novels. This thesis provides an analysis of a sampling of stories from each of the three notebooks, including “Jack & Alice” from Volume the First, “Lesley Castle” from Volume the Second, and “Evelyn” from Volume the Third. Throughout my thesis I highlight allusions to numerous novels that appear in the juvenilia, suggesting that while Austen was a great lover of the novel, she was critical of the portrayals of men and women in popular literature. Ultimately, this essay will demonstrate that while the juvenilia is humorous on its surface, it reflects the anxiety and frustration Austen experienced as a young woman. Furthermore, because the stories were written for a private audience of close family and friends, who shared her disdain for sentimentality, v the juvenilia represent Austen’s contribution to the criticism of novels and the societal limitations they reinforced. Through this lens, we can read Austen’s juvenilia as an uncensored rebellion against the limitations she experienced as a young woman both through the novels she loved and in her daily life. _______________________, Committee Chair Dr. Jonas Seth Cope _______________________ Date vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 2. VOLUME THE FIRST: “JACK & ALICE” ...................................................................... 8 3. VOLUME THE SECOND: “LESLEY CASTLE” ........................................................... 31 4. VOLUME THE THIRD: “EVELYN” .............................................................................. 51 5. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 66 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................ 68 vii 1 1 INTRODUCTION Jane Austen began writing at a young age, the most polished of her early writings making it into three vellum notebooks her father purchased for her in a show of support of his daughter's early literary talents. These notebooks are not the spontaneous scribblings of a young girl, but the painstakingly preserved final drafts of over twenty short stories, plays, letters, and scraps written between 1787 and 1793. As such, they offer a rare glimpse at the development of the aspiring writer, documenting the evolution of Austen’s early writing style. It is clear from the worn condition of the notebooks that they were well-loved by Austen and likely circulated among the family. It appears that Austen continued to revise the notebooks throughout her life and may have encouraged her niece and nephew to contribute to unfinished pieces, permitting them to write in the notebooks (Kelley 17). After the last entry of the vellum notebooks, Austen’s literary progress is harder to trace. There is evidence that Austen began work on three of her mature novels while living in the family’s Steventon home, and before the family moved to Bath in 1801. The first was a version of Northanger Abbey, which was likely written in 1794 and sold to the publisher Crosby and Son of London in 1803 under the title Susan (Le Faye xx-xxiv). However, Austen bought Susan back after Crosby refused to publish it (Kelley 37). Northanger Abbey is filled with echoes of the satirical voice heard in the vellum notebooks and is the first work Austen felt was ready for publication. Austen likely began work on Sense and Sensibility in 1795, under the working title Elinor and Marianne, and a version of Pride and Prejudice was begun in 1796 and completed in 1797. Austen’s father attempted to sell the latter to Thomas Cadell in 1797 but was 2 unsuccessful (Le Faye 104). Of all the mature novels, Northanger Abbey most closely resembles the early rambunctious writings of the vellum notebooks, but despite its echoes of young Austen, it is a dramatic departure from the absurd antics of the juvenilia, especially the violent follies of the first volume. The vellum notebooks also provide insight into Austen’s early literary tastes through the varied allusions she weaves into her stories. John McAleer asserts that the young author was “addicted to novels – novels of all kinds” (29), and her “deflationary burlesques of contemporary novelists” provide “overwhelming evidence that Jane Austen was early an omnivorous reader” (9). Austen herself declared that she and her family were “great Novel-readers and not ashamed of being so” (qtd. in Kaplan 75). For the Austens, literature was a family affair, and the young author was encouraged to create and share her stories, which she dedicated to the family and friends who made up her intimate audience. Austen pulled inspiration from the novels she read, and the notebooks are filled with popular literary conventions that would have been familiar to her primary audience. However, Austen turns these conventions on their head, creating hysterical burlesques of popular novels. In doing so, she calls out the hypocrisy of the oppressive patriarchal world in which she lived. Austen explores the popular marriage trope of sentimental fiction in most of her early stories, re-working the common plot to illustrate the limited opportunities for women and the violence that emerges between women as a result. Austen parodied popular novelists like Fanny Burney, Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, and Mrs. Radcliffe, all of whom the Austens would have read. According to Laurie Kaplan, Austen was “confident of her family’s ability to connect the general and 3 the specific and to trace her allusions,” and she used these references to “lead her audience into traps resulting from their own reading experience” (77). Kaplan further suggests that by burlesquing popular literature, Austen was imposing “her own realistic view of how literature should mirror life” (76). Brian Southam agrees that Austen’s home life “was the perfect breeding ground for literary talent of a witty and critical bent,” as the family amused themselves with reading, writing, and amateur theatricals (248). The Austen family favored plays that mocked sentimentalism and her brothers were fond of “serious moral arguments leveled against sentimental fiction” (248). Therefore, it is no surprise that the young author filled her vellum notebooks with caustic burlesques of sentimental novels. Claudia L. Johnson suggests that “the juvenilia are devoted almost exclusively to exploring and exposing the agendas of fictional conventions, some of which are manifestly and some implicitly political” (46). Seen through this lens, we can read the juvenilia as an early feminist critique of society, and not as mere replications of the novels she read. However, Austen’s parodies should not be seen as criticism of the novel itself, but some of the social conventions it reinforces. Austen clearly loved the novel, and it is clear she was well versed in sentimental fiction, as evidenced by her ability to recreate plot lines and themes from the popular sentimental novels of her day. She also pays tribute to the novel in her first mature novel, Northanger Abbey, specifically honoring two of her favorite authors, Frances Burney and Maria Edgeworth. Along with popular romances, Austen also enjoyed satirical works by Henry Fielding and Jonathan Swift. In fact, many of her earliest stories sounds more like Swift and Fielding than the female authors she 4 admired, despite her brother Henry’s claim that she never ranked Fielding quite so high as Richardson on moral grounds (H. Austen 194). Biographers disagree on Austen’s comfort level with Fielding, but it appears she was likely not as squeamish about Fielding as her brother would have us believe, given her admiration for other salacious novels, including